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Your YouTube Update for January 2018

Its a new year and YouTube has turned a page by reshuffling their monetization policies, investing in creators and just generally shuffling things to make the platform run more smoothly than in the last year.
A Change To The YouTube Monetization Policies

This is a crucial change, in particular for smaller and up and coming YouTube channels. We have detailed the changes and what it might mean to you here.
But in a nutshell, the eligibility for monetization has changed to 1k subscribers and a minimum watch time of 4,000 hours within the past 12 months. Previously creators only needed a minimum of 10k video views. YouTube believes that this new standard will help them evaluate and identify creators who have a positive impact on the community, contribute and enrich YouTube. The hope is that the changes will also prevent inappropriate content from being monetized which might affect everyone’s revenue in the long run.

YouTube Invests In Spreading Positivity

A rather uplifting and fantastic move by the video platform is their promise to invest $5 million this year into creators that promote understanding, empathy and tolerance. The Creators for Change program, which will benefit from increased marketing and production support, aims at increasing the reach of creators who stand for positive change and developments.

Launched in 2016, the program has teamed up with around 40 creators from across the globe who have published multiple videos encouraging understanding. This ranges from combatting prejudice against the LGBTQ community, religious groups or simply against hate and intolerance. The planned investment shall help to engage more creators with the program alongside developing new tools and guidance to empower a broader community.

This year, YouTube plans to engage more creators in the program as well as develop new tools and guidance for empowering the broader community. You can find out more about it here.

One Channel For Artists

YouTube is often used as the go-to destination for music, to find new artists and simply listen to your favourite ones. But many artists have more than one official channel. Now, YouTube has decided to end the confusion and streamline all the music into one place. You will soon see a new ‘Official Artist Channel’ label on YouTube, which also means that your subscriptions may change. Some may have had a VEVO and a personal YouTube channel, this will now be unified under one channel with the ‘Official Artist’ icon.

As a user, you will still be subscribed to a channel, it just might not be exactly the same channel as before. YouTube believes this will streamline the fan experience for artists on the platform.